4 Reasons Bezos Will Beat Gates By August

Last week I spent some time in Seattle on the way back from Alaska. I observed that within driving distance of my hotel live the two wealthiest people on the planet -- Bill Gates (net worth $88.8 billion) and Jeff Bezos ($85.2 billion).

Will they trade places on the FORBES rich list? There are four reasons Amazon is outgrowing Microsoft that should land Bezos at the top of the list this year.

What's more, if you compete against companies like Amazon that outgrow their peers, help is on the way -- you can sign up for my free EdX course -- Digital Strategy and Action (it launches July 11).

Before getting into these topics, let's look at the race for top dog when it comes to net worth. I do not know how much of Gates's wealth is based on Microsoft stock but Bezos owns 17% of Amazon. Nor does anyone know what will happen to those shares in the future.

Assuming that Gates's net worth is mostly in Microsoft shares and that their stock prices will keep rising as they have been so far this year (Microsoft up 13% vs. Amazon's 34%), I estimate that Bezos will top the list with a net worth of $95.1 billion -- to Gates's $92.7 billion -- this August.

Why is Amazon stock going up faster than Microsoft's? It might be related to differences in revenue growth -- Microsoft's $87.2 billion in revenue grew 3.1% in the last three years while Amazon's $143 billion is up at a 22.2% annual rate, according to Morningstar.

For insight on why Amazon is increasing revenues faster than Microsoft, consider Amazon's July 15 Whole Foods acquisition. That news sent shares of rivals like Kroger into a nose dive -- costing shareholders billions.

This raises all sorts of questions: Why would a $143 billion online retailer growing at over 20% annually pay $13.7 billion to buy 456 grocery stores? How could Amazon possibly change Whole Foods enough to justify paying a 27% premium to control it? Beyond the short-term hit to their stock prices, how will Amazon's acquisition threaten the market share of other grocery retailers? How should Whole Foods's rivals defend their turf?

While I can't answer all these questions, I know that Bezos must keep Amazon growing faster than 20% a year which means it needs about $30 billion in new revenue every year. If Amazon could take 5% of the $600 billion grocery market, it could get there.

And while Whole Foods's $15.7 billion in revenue gets Amazon half the way there, it remains unclear how Bezos will revive the grocer's growth and what rivals will do to hold on to their customers.

Amazon has been answering such questions since 1995 as it tackled the challenges of selling everything from books to diapers online and creating an industry leading cloud service.

And Amazon's success convinces me that you are missing out on a chance to make a difference in your workplace if you don't understand the fundamental principles underlying the successful digital strategies of Amazon and peers such as Facebook, Google, and Netflix.